Note from the Associate Editorial Director: Let your voice be heard

By Melissa Varnavas

Last night, I stopped to pick up a few things at Staples. At the checkout counter, the clerk ran into a couple of challenges; her station was rebooting, her manager had misplaced an expensive printer cartridge, some of the items that were on sale weren’t being rung up as such. None of these interruptions in my checkout experience were this individual’s fault and she handled them while keeping a shy smile and casual yet business-like attitude and banter with me. As she handed me my receipt, she pointed out the link to an online survey asking for customer feedback and pointed to her nametag; “I’m Brooke,” she said, “you have a great rest of your night, now.”

I actually went home and took that survey and gave Brooke kudos for her attitude and helpfulness. I also pointed out the computer glitches. Hopefully, that feedback gets back to Brooke’s managers and she gets a pat on the back and, hopefully, they will address the system challenges as well.

If done well, that’s the benefit of customer feedback—positive aspects of the customer interaction get supported and rewarded and negative outcomes get addressed. That’s the intent of our annual ACDIS membership survey, too.

In the 20-question survey, we ask what educational and professional challenges you face, how long you’ve been with us, how you use the ACDIS website and resources, which parts of the membership you appreciate most, and which you wish we’d update or improve.

The results are usually a joy for the ACDIS team to pour over, a once-a-year opportunity to hear from the members we serve that you read and appreciate the thought and effort behind the work we do every day. Of the nearly 200 people who’ve taken the survey so far, 86% gave us a four- or five-star ranking related to how valuable they find their ACDIS membership, and 90% say they’ll renew their membership annually.

And we love the personal shout-outs, even if they do mostly go to CCDS Coordinator Penny Richards.

We appreciate the insight on what we need to do better, too. One common request is to create a CCDS look-up tool, and to have online renewals and CCDS registration processes. Good news is that our parent company’s web team is actually working on these items and we hope (fingers crossed) to have them deployed this year.

It may sound cliché, but your feedback really is important to us. You are more than customers, more than members to us, we’re like friends, like family. We want to know how we can help you and we need your help to do so.

Click here to take the survey.

Oh, and if you take the survey you’ll be entered into a raffle for a free product!

Editor’s note: Varnavas is the associate editorial director of ACDIS. Contact her at mvarnavas@acdis.org.